The European Commission has set out new one-year “indicative roadmaps” for Montenegro, Albania, Moldova and Ukraine after reporting faster movement in their EU accession talks over the past year.
The Commission’s annual Enlargement Package reviews political and economic reforms in countries seeking to join the EU and sets out priorities for the year ahead, it announced in a statement on Wednesday.
Montenegro, Albania, Moldova and Ukraine advanced their accession negotiations, with groups of policy areas opened and some negotiating chapters provisionally closed “at an unprecedented pace.”
EU accession negotiations are structured around chapters covering areas such as justice, public procurement and the environment, which are opened and closed as a country meets conditions set by the EU.
Montenegro has provisionally closed 21 chapters so far, and could close the remaining chapters by the end of this year if EU member states agree.
Work on Montenegro’s accession treaty is “well underway”, and the Commission said it has presented a financial package linked to Montenegro’s accession.
Albania opened its last remaining “cluster” of chapters during the reporting period and met interim benchmarks on rule-of-law chapters, paving the way for the provisional closure of four chapters, according to the Commission.
It also reported that the period covered saw Albania’s largest civic mobilisation since the country’s democratic transition.
Moldova opened four clusters over the past year and has met the conditions to open all remaining clusters, the Commission assessed.
It said Moldova had stepped up the alignment of its laws with the EU acquis — the body of EU law that new members must adopt — and made further progress on rule-of-law reforms.
Ukraine opened four clusters over the past year and has met the conditions to open all remaining clusters, the Commission assessed.
Ukraine’s specialised anti-corruption institutions continued to operate “overall independently and effectively”, it said, while setting out further reform steps including interim rule-of-law benchmarks and work on national minority issues.
Mixed picture across other candidates
Serbia did not make any substantive progress in accession negotiations during the period under review, the Commission stated.
It also reported low alignment with the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy, the bloc’s framework for joint diplomatic and security positions.
North Macedonia continued work linked to opening benchmarks in the “fundamentals cluster”, including a roadmap for public administration reform, but has not yet adopted constitutional amendments it committed to undertake.
Bosnia and Herzegovina publicly maintained EU integration as a strategic goal while “increasingly disengaging” from its EU path, the Commission said, citing an increase in divisive rhetoric and anti-EU narratives ahead of general elections.
Kosovo’s EU-related reform process stalled amid a prolonged institutional crisis, which eased after an agreement on the election of a president, according to the Commission.
It said it lifted its measures against Kosovo and resumed financial assistance, while reporting concerns about the functioning of the judiciary and respect for fundamental rights.
Turkey remained a candidate country, but legal actions against elected officials, opposition figures and civil society intensified, raising concerns about adherence to core democratic principles, the Commission found.
It added that factors behind the standstill in accession negotiations since 2018 remained unaddressed.
Georgia’s accession process remained “de facto halted” and the Commission maintained its assessment that Georgia was “a candidate country in name only”.
It said the country continued to fall short of nine steps previously set out by the Commission for candidate status.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the Commission was proposing the new roadmaps for the “most advanced negotiating countries — Montenegro, Albania, Ukraine and Moldova”.
It is now for EU member states in the Council to consider the Commission’s recommendations and decide on next steps, the Commission added.
